


Start

by NoMoreTears707



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Another fic about their last time, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 11:03:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoMoreTears707/pseuds/NoMoreTears707
Summary: It was his decision, of course, but it wasn't less painful for that: Erwin’s absence is unbearable. However, Levi cannot give up. He never will.~Eruri, before and after RTS arc.





	Start

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Puesta en marcha](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/559954) by Me as NMT7. 

> My English is not the best. I'm sorry. I made this translation of my own story for mere practice. 
> 
> I hope you like it. Thank you. ♥

**C**_liché_, the only word that is possible to say about this, the obvious one shouted by a thousand and one throats. The last night he spent on this bed was a cliché, as all the others.

Or so he would’ve liked. 

He strokes the bed with the palm of his left hand, with its fingers separated one from the other, as open as possible; he has a chill on his waist, on the same place where, before their return to Shiganshina, only fire had gone through, that one so well known, a fire that used to come only from _ those _ hands. What sadness fills him, then, not for the decision that he made, one of which he will never regret, as he promised, but for the trail that left printed in his life.

The absence. 

Death becomes real when an empty space is the only thing that remains. Levi already knew it; since his eyes had seen how his mother left the world sunken into the saddest misery that is clear for him: absence confirms death, turns a person into a meaningless corpse, it makes impossible the desire to go back, to return to the moment where everything was right. But it had been his decision, after all: giving the serum to Armin had been his decision, or not.

To let Erwin go, to let him go from this hell that could never be worthy of his strength, his integrity, his courage and intelligence, it had been his real choice.

That, however, doesn't make things easier.

He doesn't have time: for the latest events, the revelations found in the basement of Eren's house, he has too much to do; another chill burns where the caress happened, that caress that he had felt with so much detail, like the worst of the omens expressed in the most beautiful way, with the most beautiful fingers. It was his decision, but that it doesn't make it easier, it never will.

Let Erwin Smith go, him more than any other person, could never be easy.

Levi looks at the bed as his hand, which shakes almost imperceptibly, moves once more.

It hurts.

His breathing speeds up a bit when he feels a current of pain go through him. Even Humanity's Strongest has a moment of weakness, of course. It destroys him, the absence fills his heart with darkness, with dispair. It hurts, all the absences hurt, all the dear people he has lost in the stretch of this hell in life hurt.

But none of them was him.

He squeezes the sheet between his fingers, with his eyelids shaking as he presses them. He contains the scream that appears inside his throat.

"I'm not going to regret it," he whispers without a sound.

Because this world is a hell, the pit of all injustice. They both knew it, it was an inevitable conclusion in front of the walls that have worked as a cage for so many people for so long, all that humanity blinded by lies. Erwin already had done too much in pursuit of the truth, of justice.

Of his own motivations, too.

It was his turn to rest. It was time, yes. It doesn't matter how much it hurts, how intolerable is his absence right now.

"This isn’t over," Levi says, his eyes on the pillow. 

He caresses it, squeezes it, strangles it using too much strength. But the hand that he uses, the left one, stops.

He takes a deep breath and tries to get up; something brakes him. Through the window, he sees how the sun begins to weaken, just like that sunset before the expedition to retake Wall Maria. He should have broken Erwin’s legs, right? He should have done it; he should have thought about the best for humanity. 

Bullshit. 

He only could think of him, of Erwin and what he deserved after so much pain. And no, he will never regret it. 

He looks at the room, strokes it with his pupils, his sight blurry for the pain that absence produces: the books scattered around the desk, other ones on the floor, the round table, the two chairs, the empty cups… It's like seeing it all again, as if he felt everything once more.

It's as if he had _ him _ before him one last time.

The night is painted with the colours of nostalgia; the memory becomes real thanks to the cruelty of circumstances.

He sees himself that night; he _ becomes _ that version of himself as he remembers. 

.

.

.

He's seated on one of the two chairs that are around the table, next to the bed, with that cold gesture that is so common on him. With one leg crossed over the other and his arms over his chest, he feels how uncertainty stalks him like an abnormal under a storm. 

A few hours ago, before the last dinner, he tried to dissuade Erwin with all possible facts, one truth after the other, unavoidable punches that came from reality: if in addition to a possible failure your life is lost…; you just need to sit and use your head, that’s enough, that’ll do more than anything else to trip up the titans and…

"No, that’s not true," that damned bastard had answered, "I can do the most good by staking everything on this operation and…"

Pretexts.

"I should have broken your legs," Levi says, pressing one arm against the other, both always on his chest, crossed. 

Finally, there was no way to dissuade him: Erwin will go, he will guide his men as he has done for so long, he will do so in order to find the truth that is more important than his legs, than humanity’s victory. That is more important, for Levi, than his own yearnings, too, even those who only put one single goal in front of his eyes.

To protect Erwin.

To protect the life that matters the most for him.

After that conversation, tired of the dinner that followed it, Levi had moved away from the others; he needed to think, uncertainty implored that to him. It was enough to listen to Armin talking to Eren and Mikasa about the oceans to get inspired.

He had to do it. 

He has to, now.

The door opens, then: Erwin enters quietly, without to make a sound. When he closes the door, to see him in the chair doesn't surprise him at all.

It's not the first time.

"It'll not be the last one," Levi says without blinking, his gesture serious, undaunted.

Erwin's answer is to lock the door: he does so moving his left hand awkwardly. Right after that, he keeps the key inside his pocket. Finally, he turns to Levi. 

Erwin barely smiles with that sobriety so recognizable on him. 

The smile that Levi loves the most. 

Erwin lowers his sight for a second; he raises it, and Levi feels not only how his body shudders just for looking at him, trapped in too many feelings for how uncertain the future will always be inside this walls. He does it, especially, for the feeling that bothers him so much, the most unbearable of all.

Fear.

"It'll always be the last one," Erwin says, his voice so calm that it even annoys him.

And no, it's not the first time.

When it was? Levi doesn't remember it: their lives, always, for being who they are and dedicating their hearts to what they do, are only the same day repeating again and again. Just after the last events, their routine of missions, titans, death and walls have changed: the truth seems to be too close of their hands, the most important truth, the one that could corroborate all their suspicions and could reveal all the mysteries. An immense truth, as infinite as the sky that, tonight, shows the brightest stars. 

It's not the first time they are in this room, in front of the white curtains that partially cover the windows, illuminated by one single candle; the first time was too long ago and never found explanation or excuse, because they didn't need them. It was, basically, what the two of them deserved before leaving each time.

To say gooobye to the other in their own way. 

Years repeating the same day, living the inertia of a blinded reality; years repeating that ritual of respect and admiration, the physical representation of the intimacy they share to an almost sickly point, in all possible aspects. Something that they never would be able to explain, that no one would understand, that transcends all the reasons why, even those related to the Ackerman's nature that Levi doesn't know yet.

Their own way to be free, together. 

There has never been a place for questions or doubts; they don't care how well or bad this might be for the others, all those people that will never understand. Because it's not lust, it could never be just that, not between them. Neither love, because the word it's not enough. It's not even the mere expression of a bond like theirs, more solid than a thousand walls.

It's as if they were two parts of the same thing, a question and an answer always destined to meet again, like a mirror showing a better version of themselves, a reflection they don't want to share with anyone else, that only has to do with them. This is what Levi feels: sharing the bed with his Commander at nights like this it's the need to express to each other, and also to themselves, something that nobody else could do for them; it's to exalt their bond and take it to its limit, the most powerful of all.

It's honoring their bond, honoring it as a god, one that is as real as their feelings, all those strong concepts that would be impossible to encapsulate in just one basic, grey, useless word.

How to put a whole universe in a small cardboard box?

Levi gets up, walks three steps towards Erwin, stops when he looks at him with disturbing fixity. Erwin gives him a smile, the only one he has, sober but significant.

The smile that nobody but Levi could tolerate.

But no, he doesn't. Not now, not after his last decision, that of lead the operation.

Despite that, he goes one step further, two, three; Erwin awaits him with his back against the door, unlike how he used to before losing his arm, those times when he took the initiative without further ado. 

When Levi reaches him, he doesn't need to do more than look at him in the eye.

"Move," Levi says as he walks to the bed.

Erwin follows him, Levi knows it by listening to each step, slow all of them, out of phase with the two hearts present, who beat, who accelerate in the same way, at the same time. When they stop next to the bed, Levi looks at Erwin one more time: with that shitty smile that annoys him on his lips, he obeys the orders given without a sound.

Erwin sits on bed leaving on him his eyes.

Just as he doesn't remember the first time, Levi doesn't remember the last one: all he knows is it was before Erwin lost his right arm. He notices some resistance in Erwin since then, a kind of implied discomfort. He has preferred not to enter in his room with this kind of intention for a while, respect that small distance imposed by him.

After he told him he will lead the operation, he has no way to stop himself. In this, in relation to this, Levi doesn't trust Erwin's judgement.

He cannot. Not now.

Levi takes a step towards Erwin, who opens his legs with astonishing naturalness, the same as usual. The simplicity of the movement plunges them into an enchantment they know well. It's what it flows between them, something that it works.

It's that force that attracts them, the bond of respect and admiration that they make up functioning as the key to everything else. The force that is more than love, than lust, that closes their throats and bristles their skin before the dark walls barely illuminated by a weak candlelight.

An inadequate fatality in such a context, being those who they are.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Why you didn't look for me?" Levi asks, standing between one thigh and the other.

Erwin sighs; the sound of his breathing, persistent, harmonious, works on Levi as a powerful drug.

Erwin touches his right shoulder with his left hand.

"There's not much I can do without an arm," he replies calmly, with no hint of anguish or embarrassment.

Confidentially, without walls around his eyes, something that, as Levi well knows, Erwin only allows himself with him. 

To show that smile that the world doesn't recognize as something common on him.

"Don't make me question your judgement," Levi replays, with the eyes made of ice and the Captain's demeanor intact, struggling not to get carried away by the mere sound of Erwin's breathing.

Knowing that Erwin knows exactly how to read what lies behind that cold mask. 

"You could do it, too," Erwin replies.

Levi instantly notices, with the simple sound of his voice, how Erwin's breathing increases his rhythm. Listens, too, the acceleration of their heartbeats, Erwin's and his own. 

"I could, but I didn't," Levi says.

Erwin's eyebrows barely rise; there's complicity in his gesture. Levi's eyes, always on the defensive, finally relax.

He releases himself, he allows to flow in the clarity of the eyes that look at him from another existential plane, one where nothing reigns, nothing, more than peace.

"So?" Erwin asks in a whisper. "I thought you trusted my judgement."

"That's why I didn't do it," Levi explains.

"And why are you doing it now?"

What does Erwin mean by looking at him like this, with so much peace filling up his eyes, peace interspersed with complicity, with acceptance, with such a shitty serenity? What does he mean by asking why? There has never been a reason nor a conversation to explain why.

"You know it," Levi answers on the verge of fury.

He's here to say his last goodbye!

Erwin's hand reaches one of his cheeks; Levi trembles under the touch, he does so in such a way that even a gasp escapes from him. The room turns upside down, his legs wobble, the light of the candle draws strange shadows on the wall; everything gets blurry, everything except the smile drawn on Erwin's lips, except the frowning eyebrows, except the eyes that beg for the same as Levi.

To say goodbye with the words that only them know how to speak.

"I know it," Erwin whispers as he strokes Levi's lower lip with his thumb. 

Defeated, Levi naturally descends to the only possible place.

Erwin's lips.

When he kisses him with his mouth closed and his eyes open, Levi discovers the truth in Erwin's eyes: there is no fear, there is never fear, but there is nervousness, and anguish, and fatigue, and a lot of tiredness. But, in the pupils, there are also the yearnings that he shows through his lips, kissing him back slowly, with just an innocent touch.

They need to say goodbye, yes. Both need it before to leave, more than ever.

Now.

Needing a support for the revolution that the feeling unties inside of him, Levi holds Erwin's coat. He takes it off, and unbuttons his shirt, quickly but delicately. He opens the shirt, and he notices a spark of childish shyness in Erwin's eyes.

It's not about, he discovers, that Erwin feels embarrassed by the lack of his right arm; it's about guilt, about not being able to touch him as before, to be the one of the initiative, who needed only a glance to drag Levi under him on the desk, or the floor, or the bed, or the walls. It never matter where! He wants to be that Erwin full of confidence, the Erwin that belongs to this bond, but he cannot, not as before.

Levi feels some kind of tenderness filling his heart when he finds out that truth, an almost childish tenderness that works on him more than he's able to tolerate.

"It's not a big deal, idiot," he says as he kisses between Erwin's eyes.

Levi takes care of his own clothes; standing between Erwin's legs, removes each garment from himself. Erwin, meanwhile, contemplates him; Levi doesn't know it, but, for Erwin, the candlelight makes him even more beautiful. The brightness of his pupils, the subtle shadow that he projects on the wall… Every single detail, all of him is more beautiful inside this room, in the epicentre of their bond. 

Levi ends up with himself; being naked before Erwin, as usual, is as easy as breath. To take off Erwin's clothes it's easy as well, even his shirt, which he takes off from him with his two hands, slowly, his eyes all over him, breathing loudly because of him. 

Actually, Levi already knows it: he's more beautiful before him, and vice versa. 

Their bond it is.

A caress on Erwin's right shoulder makes him shiver more than usual, as if the sensitivity of that part of his body was a thousand times greater than in the past. Levi descends with his fingers, brushing him with its tips.

Under his touch, Erwin easily melts.

Erwin falls on the bed with his eyes closed, and how vulnerable he seems to Levi like this, with his face turned to the side and a hint of blush coloring his cheeks. He's sweet, he is for an instant, something that is uncommon on him, even in this kind of situation. 

Levi repeats the caress, says with his fingers that is fine, that he doesn't have to feel uncomfortable, not with him. That he can be this Erwin too, a sweet version of him. 

Erwin's eyes open for his delicate touch. Shining more than stars, they whisper gratefulness and seem to destroy space and time. Levi caresses one of his eyebrows and feels how his entire existence stops.

He doesn't want to say goodbye. It's not that simple, not this time. 

Desperate for reasons he doesn't know yet, Levi sits on Erwin's lap and squeezes his thighs with his knees. On top of him, he will always feel tiny. How little offends him that sensation, how little he cares about it.

What is a recurring joke outside, between them is part of the charm. Here, inside their bond, he likes to feel tiny.

He knows that Erwin likes to feel huge before him, too. 

Erwin looks at him one more time, and the tiredness is there, pushing the half-closed eyelids. There is also peace, this that, mysteriously, always prevails between them when they say goodbye. 

None of them wants just that. Not tonight. 

Erwin holds him by the hip. His left hand, as huge as this man is, goes up, slowly, until it runs along Levi's thin waist; his hand is fire, and with its caresses burns his skin. Levi contains a gasp, eyes without blinking, half-closed, fixed on those who look at them with an absolute trust.

A simple caress that feels a complete reality, all the truths fused in a movement; what power Erwin has on him, on Humanity’s Strongest in person, the best weapon in their fight against the titans.

How much it seduces him to be defeated like this, to be free. 

Levi's face falls against Erwin's, and the huge hand burns even more on the waist, and the eyes don't close, and the pupils don't stop to look at the others, their lips barely touching. There is a thread that surrounds them, that forces them to this; a thread that, actually, it has to do with lust, also with mutual devotion, but, above all, is one that talks about love. A love that is admiration, trust, respect, and more. A love that is lust, friendship, confidence.

A love that is even more, that is too much, that is all the threads, that is the most perfect synchronization between two beings that, just with the other, express everything they have as individuals.

Two beings that, when they join each other, make up the perfect feeling, the perfect image, the perfect thought.

The most meaningful bond that could exist.

Looking at each other, they hear the other's agitation. Their breathing increase and increase in rhythm and intensity when the heat they produce expands, and fills up the room, and suffocates them with perverse accuracy in the depths of their bond. Their lips touch a little more, kiss, suck; scream, their mouths, all the words that don't exist.

What they need is not to say goodbye, but to make their bond prevail against all.

Erwin's arm surrounds his back; suffocated, their mouths merge against each other. Their bodies move along the bed between caresses, awkwardly, pushing from one side to the other, until they reach the middle of the surface. Levi holds Erwin's face and says it all by kissing his lips.

They cannot allow this to be the last time.

Erwin's hand touches the back of his neck. They kiss under the candlelight, one mouth panting against the other. The hand descends, goes down the column. Burns the waist, again, by holding it firmly. Erwin's eyes look at Levi with a transcendental fixity.

An omen revolutionizes Levi's feelings: yes, it will be the last time.

This is their last goodbye.

Levi, needing to undo that sensation of dramatic doom, whispers an angry "no" to which Erwin responds with a smile.

"You'll prevail," he says to him.

The peace that fills Erwin's eyes by saying it has nothing to do with this world. Nothing, absolutely nothing: it's a peace worthy of paradise.

It's the one that comes from who has already given everything of his being.

Levi looks at him, and looks at him, and keeps looking at him; he knows he can't contradict him. Not because the Commander of the Survey Corps is giving him an order, not because of how devoted he is to Erwin Smith, that only one man, the most important, the one who will never be replaced in the barracks or in this bed, much less in his heart and the memories he keeps, so many nights after repeated days, the same misfortune finding the same miracle at the end.

He will prevail because nothing will erase his memory.

Nothing.

Neither time, nor events, nor magic. 

Nothing!

In his mind, something will always return to Erwin Smith. And the days will be the same inertia, and the nights will be of the most unbearable loneliness.

But the memory will prevail.

The two of them under the candlelight in this room filled with books. They without clothes, on the bed, being obvious with the other, yelling the redundant in the most intimate way. They, trapped inside their own bond, the only place where they can be free.

Erwin Smith will prevail, too. Here, in the caress that already burns on Levi's skin, he will.

Levi squeezes Erwin's thighs with his knees, again, using more strength than necessary in a scene like this. Erwin laughs against his lips.

"Levi…"

"What?"

"You said you wouldn't break my legs."

"Bullshit: I never said I wouldn't break them, I just said that I'd let you lead the operation."

A new caress on Levi's thigh is enough; he relaxes his knees, he does so reluctantly. He trusts him, he was honest when he said it, but inside himself, no.

He refuses to accept it. To let him go, to let him die.

To find him only _ here_, in his memories.

But Erwin takes the initiative by entangling his fingers in his hair in pursuit of reaching his lips, kissing him with that intoxicating seriousness, with that detail proper of who knows everything, of whom everything understands when it comes to other person. And he knows everything about Levi, he does so, of course, because the slowness of his mouth, his touch against his lips, his fingers grabbing his hair, all ignites all his instincts at once.

There, burning against the other, burning for the feelings they share more than ever, they are free. 

It's Levi who is in charge of everything what follows, motivated by the sober but intense impetus that Erwin shows with his actions. He prepares himself before Erwin, who kisses him on the lips, on the cheeks, on the eyelids, on the neck, to give him all the inspiration, all the freedom he deserves. 

After that, when Levi feels Erwin inside him, when Erwin takes him from his hip to take himself deeper, there's nothing left to say. Slowly, with gentleness and commitment, they move against each other feeling the same inability to speak. 

Levi hugs him, encloses Erwin's neck in his arms following the rhythm that his hand begs over his hip. He moans against Erwin's neck, kisses it, caresses it with his closed eyelids.

He doesn't want to say goodbye!

"Thank you," Erwin whispers just before becoming the same as usual when they are on this bed, the one who leads between their bodies with the same mastery with which he leads his soldiers outside the walls, the implacable, wonderful, invincible Erwin Smith that only Levi knows.

The one who will leave this world in peace.

Erwin pushes him; Levi sinks into the bed and moans as he arches his back; the enjoyment is like flying, like being floating in the middle of the sky.

Erwin lost an arm, yes, but not wisdom. By moving on top of him, by whispering his name each time a little louder, with a charm that only pleasure embraced by love it has, Erwin demonstrates the same as usual.

Everything is mutual. Each feeling, each exaltation.

It's with the other where everything is worthwhile, their bond being the home of what both define as happiness.

.

.

.

The sun goes down; a new day ends. The pillow where he had seen him fall asleep right that plunges into the same darkness as the world. Levi squeezes it, desperate.

He doesn't want to stop remembering.

His hand calms down, however. He frees the pillow, caresses the air that surrounds it, the one that confirms the absence that is already unbearable. He swears to see him for a moment, he imagines him just like the last time.

Erwin's face looked so peaceful next to him…

The same peace in which, now, he will rest forever.

"You gave up on your dream," Levi says. "I'll fulfill my part, Erwin."

He will kill the Beast Titan. It doesn't matter how long it takes or what dangers he has to face.

He will.

Only then he will stop, and remembering Erwin on this same bed will be the prize for so much effort. Only then he will allow it.

He puts his fist on his chest, his left fist, Erwin's one. He squeezes it in such a way that his whole arm trembles, exerting the strength of both of them on himself, alone with the absence.

"Move…" he asks himself.

He will give his heart to this purpose. He will not stop his wings before anything nor anyone.

When the day begins again, when the inertia resumes, he will start. There will be time for the rest.

For let his wings to take him to where he will always prevail no matter what.

.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I apologize if there's some IC issues and mistakes about SNK’s universe. It's my first time and I’m trying to learn as much as possible about them, rereading original material and taking notes. And it’s my first translation in months: I need to practice a lot, I know. 
> 
> This story it's mine and it was originally published on Fanfiction.Net at the end of June under the name "Puesta en marcha”. 
> 
> I made some changes because I don’t feel that fic (I mean the Spanish version) a worthy approach to Eruri nor SNK. I hope this version could be considered a better one.
> 
> Just a little, at least. 
> 
> If you still are on the other side of this screen, thanks for reading! I hope to make something far better than this the next time. :’) 
> 
> Thanks! 


End file.
